China: Universal Health Care

‘China is pumping in 850 billion yuan ($124 billion) to reform the ailing system in the next three years as part of an ambitious – and still only hazily outlined – plan to provide basic medical coverage and insurance to all of China’s 1.3 billion people.

“Within three years, every village in the country will have a clinic,” the report said.

A total of 1.37 million certified health care practitioners will be trained to staff those clinics, it said, alongside about half-a-million more assigned to medical centres at the township and city level. China has nearly 700,000 villages.

The reforms also include plans to build 29,000 new township hospitals, and 2,000 at the county level.

Financial details of the reforms have not been given but Finance Vice Minister Wang Jun, also speaking at Wednesday’s briefing, said the central government will pay for 40 per cent of the investment while local governments will provide the rest of the funds.’

But while we’re talking of China – I heard recently that they have become like Rajasthan, India, where the boys highly outnumber the girls, and so there’s problems finding wives. Imagine that. Who would ever have guessed that abortions, once you realise it’s a girl, would have that wider effect? Or that abandoning girl kids, resulting in their deaths in a lot of cases, would tip the population boy-heavy?